Quatermass and the Pit (1968)- Are we human?

[ray gower]

synopsis
Workmen extending the London Underground, discover a war time bomb amongst an ancient burial site. Professor Quatermass is less convinced that the explanation is so simple, especially when he discovers the areas history.
So it proves as dark forces are released on the Earth that threaten not only mankinds future, but his history.

There are several possible themes for space Sci/Fi: Man finds Aliens (Alien, Star Trek etc). Aliens find Man (ET, Invasion of the Body Snatchers etc.). Quatermass and the Pit belongs to the third class: Man is Alien.

It is also one of the few horror films that have ever left an impression beyond the going home pint in the pub afterwards. To be quite honest it scared the living daylights out of me the first time I saw it in 1968 (The BBC version 10 years previously had the same effect as well).

Where as The Quatermass Xperiment and Quatermass II, both superb Sci/Fi shockers of their time, have been relegated in film terms to dodgy B's despite their strong stories and acting, the Pit is still more than capable of making the hackles of alarm stir!

Like the first two films, the Pit is full of solid character actors that carry the tension and building horror (the vision of the police sergeant near the beginning, disolve into a fearful wreck as he remembers stories from his childhood of the happenings in Hob's Lane must come as a classic from any support actor). The difference is that a little more money was spent on effects, but they are used sparingly and in sympathy with what the characters are doing.

Andrew Keir, the original Quatermass from the BBC series, is a far better Quatermass than Levey when it comes to feeling sympathy as he fights stupidity in higher circles.

 

[Dave]

I don't really remember 'The Quatermass Xperiment' or 'Quatermass II', but like you I have vivid memories of seeing this (probably later than 1968) and it also scared the living daylights out of me too. I say it must have been later than 1968, because I don't think I would have been old enough to be allowed to watch it then (though I do remember watching 'The Avengers' when I was very lucky.)

 

[BAYLOR]

Quatermass and the the Pit alwsy struck me as being a lovecraftain film with shades of At The Mountains of Madness and The Shadow out of Time .

 

[BAYLOR]

The film like the 1958 tv serial of its based on is very unsettling to watch . One scene come to mind, when the workman went to collect his tools, he goes in to the capsule and the lights suddenly go out and then all hell breaks lose.

 

[mosaix]

I vaguely remember all three Quatermass TV series (I would have been about ten years old) - The Pit most vividly. The special effects weren't all that special but somehow that made it all the more scary - that and it was in black and white. I do remember a scene where some guy fell onto a graveled path and the path rippled underneath him - it made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.

I think they were six episode serials. Each episode always ended on a cliff-hanger or something a bit spooky.

 

[Extollager]

Quatermass and the the Pit alwsy struck me as being a lovecraftain film with shades of At The Mountains of Madness and The Shadow out of Time .

This is the one with the Martian remains. I wish I remembered when it was that, as a
youngster, I saw this, as Five Million Years to Earth.

 

[BAYLOR]

I vaguely remember all three Quatermass TV series (I would have been about ten years old) - The Pit most vividly. The special effects weren't all that special but somehow that made it all the more scary - that and it was in black and white. I do remember a scene where some guy fell onto a graveled path and the path rippled underneath him - it made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.

I think they were six episode serials. Each episode always ended on a cliff-hanger or something a bit spooky.

It was six episodes and they were very suspenseful.

 

[BAYLOR]

One scene that really creeped me out in the 1967 film, was the one in which the Police officer told Quatermass about the the houses in Hobs end that were abandoned not because of the London Blitz WW2 like Colonel Breen and the military people believed , but because people wouldn't live in them due to strange noises and apparitions and other things . They both proceed across the street into one of the decrepit and abandoned houses . Once inside house the first thing you can't help but notice are the scratches on the walls, which made that scene all the more unsettling . As Quatermass questions the officer who was from Hobs end , about the what went there years ago, the officer became ever more uncomfortable taking about it and then stopped talking about it and , when the subject of the scratches on the wall came up and bolted from the house. saying the scratches were cause by" kids playing " . This one part in which the film actually does a better job then 1958 serial. Interestingly the police officer in 1967 film also played a police officer in the 1958 serial too.

 

[mosaix]

The Goons did a great send up of Quatermass and the pit. According to them the 'space ship' was an abandoned tube train that had been shunted into a siding and forgotten.

 

[BAYLOR]

The Goons did a great send up of Quatermass and the pit. According to them the 'space ship' was an abandoned tube train that had been shunted into a siding and forgotten.

Do they have it on Youtube?

 

[mosaix]

Do they have it on Youtube?

No. It was a radio program. But I have a recording on a vinyl LP record that, I now realise, is 53 years old.

It still plays perfectly however. Not a scratch.

 

[BAYLOR]

No. It was a radio program. But I have a recording on a vinyl LP record that, I now realise, is 53 years old.

It still plays perfectly however. Not a scratch.

Wasn't Peter Sellars on that show?

 

[BAYLOR]

This is the one with the Martian remains. I wish I remembered when it was that, as a
youngster, I saw this, as Five Million Years to Earth.

I first saw this film back in the early 1970's .

 

[mosaix]

Wasn't Peter Sellars on that show?

Peter Sellars, Spike Milligan, Harry Secombe.

Milligan also wrote the scripts. For years The Goons was the most popular radio program on the BBC. Millions tuned in every week. Writing it almost drove him to a nervous breakdown. I believe the BBC paid him a paltry £40 per episode.

 

[BAYLOR]

Peter Sellars, Spike Milligan, Harry Secombe.

Milligan also wrote the scripts. For years The Goons was the most popular radio program on the BBC. Millions tuned in every week. Writing it almost drove him to a nervous breakdown. I believe the BBC paid him a paltry £40 per episode.

That's poverty wages , he could have made more money in the movies.

 

[HanaBi]

Peter Sellars, Spike Milligan, Harry Secombe.

Milligan also wrote the scripts. For years The Goons was the most popular radio program on the BBC. Millions tuned in every week. Writing it almost drove him to a nervous breakdown. I believe the BBC paid him a paltry £40 per episode.

Actually 40 quid back in say 1956 (the midpoint of the Goons broadcasting era), would be worth about £690 in today's money! (Unless of course you're referring to £40 in today's money, which works out at £2.40 back then)

 

[BAYLOR]

The 1967 film had a terrific director in the person of Roy Ward Baker. Who had done A Night to Remeber(still the best Titantic film ever made)

 

[KGeo777]

Nigel Kneale did the Abominable Snowman--another Hammer film with a "who is the real monster?" story line. Was the Yeti really the remnant of a dying race or waiting for Humans to wipe themselves out?

Quatermass and the Pit is one Hammer made film that does not end with the preservation of society being a comforting thing-since it implies a corruption that can never be eliminated or redeemed. There is an uneasiness to the conclusion.

Also reminds me of Richard Matheson's I Am Legend which is essentially Dracula in reverse. The man becomes the monster.

"Your society is bad" theme is one Hollywood emphasized regularly through the 60s and 70s, and if there is a redemption element, it usually came from the foreign or alien (this is also true of Matheson stories where the fearful protagonist ultimately embraces the alien).

That alone is a stark contrast with Dracula where the threat to society is the foreign.


Later Kneale was involved with a planned remake of Creature From the Black Lagoon which would have also suggested that the Gill Man was not an evolutionary dead end but similar to the Yeti.

I read that Kneale was inspired by violent reactions to immigration increases in the UK when he wrote Q and the Pit, if true I have to wonder how current news and immigration effects would influence his thinking in that regard.

 

[BAYLOR]

Whatever happened to the proposed reboot of Quatermass ?

 

[BAYLOR]

Nigel Kneale did the Abominable Snowman--another Hammer film with a "who is the real monster?" story line. Was the Yeti really the remnant of a dying race or waiting for Humans to wipe themselves out?

Quatermass and the Pit is one Hammer made film that does not end with the preservation of society being a comforting thing-since it implies a corruption that can never be eliminated or redeemed. There is an uneasiness to the conclusion.

Also reminds me of Richard Matheson's I Am Legend which is essentially Dracula in reverse. The man becomes the monster.

"Your society is bad" theme is one Hollywood emphasized regularly through the 60s and 70s, and if there is a redemption element, it usually came from the foreign or alien (this is also true of Matheson stories where the fearful protagonist ultimately embraces the alien).

That alone is a stark contrast with Dracula where the threat to society is the foreign.


Later Kneale was involved with a planned remake of Creature From the Black Lagoon which would have also suggested that the Gill Man was not an evolutionary dead end but similar to the Yeti.

I read that Kneale was inspired by violent reactions to immigration increases in the UK when he wrote Q and the Pit, if true I have to wonder how current news and immigration effects would influence his thinking in that regard.

Ive seen the Abominable Snowman, I seem to recall that actor Forest Tucker was in it .